Bruce,
I think I have a bigger table than listed in the manual. Mine is 42" instead of the standard one which is 36." The friendly fellow from the other forum that gave me the few documents I posted way up in this thread was also aware of 42" tables being offered, so I don't know if it was a rare upgrade or not.
That said, I got a lot less knee travel than the manual listed, and a lot more table travel, so I think I have to measure all of them myself. I did use the exact method you described, basically making a mark on the saddle where I would mount the scale read head and then marking the table at either end of travel where my "read head" is located, measure the distance between the marks. That got me ~23.7" which I rounded up to 24" based on the binding I was getting in the gibs at the extreme ends of travel where the table was never worn in.
Personally, I'm leaning towards a 4 axis setup with a scale on both the knee and quill and a summing box to tell me the distance from the spindle to the table. I'm also leaning towards a direct-from-China DRO. I've read too many people having problems with the Acu-Rite scales and such to be willing to spend the money on something that's not going to significantly outlast the import.
Thanks,
Will
I think I have a bigger table than listed in the manual. Mine is 42" instead of the standard one which is 36." The friendly fellow from the other forum that gave me the few documents I posted way up in this thread was also aware of 42" tables being offered, so I don't know if it was a rare upgrade or not.
That said, I got a lot less knee travel than the manual listed, and a lot more table travel, so I think I have to measure all of them myself. I did use the exact method you described, basically making a mark on the saddle where I would mount the scale read head and then marking the table at either end of travel where my "read head" is located, measure the distance between the marks. That got me ~23.7" which I rounded up to 24" based on the binding I was getting in the gibs at the extreme ends of travel where the table was never worn in.
Personally, I'm leaning towards a 4 axis setup with a scale on both the knee and quill and a summing box to tell me the distance from the spindle to the table. I'm also leaning towards a direct-from-China DRO. I've read too many people having problems with the Acu-Rite scales and such to be willing to spend the money on something that's not going to significantly outlast the import.
Thanks,
Will